Going for a run? Ditch fancy shoes

Australian researchers said yesterday they had found no scientific proof that hi-tech running shoes improve athletic performance or limit injury.

Newcastle University physiologist Craig Richards said the myth of the modern running shoe had exploded into a vast industry since the 1970s but a study of sports medicine literature since 1950 found there was no scientific proof they worked.

"A collective psyche has developed around these shoes," Richards, the lead researcher, said. "It's so ingrained now that to even suggest that there's no evidence that they work gets a very rude reaction from people."